WHEELS OF WONDER: A wheeled figurine from the New World, probably made in Veracruz between 100 B.C. and 800 A.D.
Image: madman2001 | Creative Commons
Wheels are the archetype of a primitive, caveman-level technology. But in fact, they're so ingenious that it took until 3500 B.C. for someone to invent them. By that time — it was the Bronze Age — humans were already casting metal alloys, constructing canals and sailboats, and even designing complex musical instruments such as harps.
The tricky thing about the wheel is not conceiving of a cylinder rolling on its edge. It's figuring out how to connect a stable, stationary platform to that cylinder.
"The stroke of brilliance was the wheel-and-axle concept," said David Anthony, a professor of anthropology at Hartwick College and author of "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language" (Princeton, 2007). "But then making it was also difficult."
To make a fixed axle with revolving wheels, Anthony explained, the ends of the axle had to be nearly perfectly smooth and round, as did the holes in the center of the wheels; otherwise, there would be too much friction for the wheels to turn. Furthermore, the axles had to fit snugly inside the wheels' holes, but not too snugly — they had to be free to rotate. [What Makes Wheels Appear to Spin Backward?]
The success of the whole structure was extremely sensitive to the size of the axle. While a narrow one would reduce the amount of friction, it would also be too weak to support a load. Meanwhile, a thick axle would hugely increase the amount of friction. "They solved this problem by making the earliest wagons quite narrow, so they could have short axles, which made it possible to have an axle that wasn't very thick," Anthony told Life's Little Mysteries.
The sensitivity of the wheel-and-axle system to all these factors meant that it could not have been developed in phases, he said. It was an all-or-nothing structure.
Whoever invented it must have had access to wide slabs of wood from thick-trunked trees in order to carve large, round wheels. They also needed metal tools to chisel fine-fitted holes and axles. And they must have had a need for hauling heavy burdens over land. According to Anthony, "It was the carpentry that probably delayed the invention until 3500 B.C. or so, because it was only after about 4000 B.C. that cast copper chisels and gouges became common in the Near East."
The invention of the wheel was so challenging that it probably happened only once, in one place. However, from that place, it seems to have spread so rapidly across Eurasia and the Middle East that experts cannot say for sure where it originated. The earliest images of wheeled carts have been excavated in Poland and elsewhere in the Eurasian steppes, and this region is overtaking Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) as the wheel's most likely birthplace. According to Asko Parpola, an Indologist at the University of Helsinki in Finland, there are linguistic reasons to believe the wheel originated with the Tripolye people of modern-day Ukraine. That is, the words associated with wheels and wagons derive from the language of that culture.
Parpola thinks miniature models of wheeled wagons, which are commonly found in the Eurasian steppes, likely predated human-scale wagons. "It is … striking that so many models were made in the Tripolye culture. Such models are often thought to have been children's toys, but it seems more likely to me that they were miniature counterparts of real things," he said. "The primacy of the miniature models is suggested by the fact that wheeled images of animals even come from native Indian cultures of Central America, where real wheels were never made."
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54 Comments
Add CommentWho knew there could be so many fascinating findings and mysteries around something seemingly so simple?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm amazed at the truncated arrogance of continuing and persistent assumptions that the earliest known/discovered/postulated example of a thing in antiquity actually represents its origin. Gawk, boy, do you think that rusty can in your back yard is the really, truly, no-kidding forst ever can ever?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's like modern science still believes nothing exited before a white man found out about it.
Wheels were used tens of thousands of years before 3,500 BC, so we're marbles, and rocks, and bows and arrows, and fire, and even metal.
Really, you heard it from me.
By the way, sex was first discovered by humans in 3,800 BC. Before that there was no sex.
I'm amazed at the truncated arrogance of continuing and persistent assumptions that the earliest known/discovered/postulated example of a thing in antiquity actually represents its origin. Gawk, boy, do you think that rusty can in your back yard is the really, truly, no-kidding forst ever can ever?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's like modern science still believes nothing exited before a white man found out about it.
Wheels were used tens of thousands of years before 3,500 BC, so we're marbles, and rocks, and bows and arrows, and fire, and even metal.
Really, you heard it from me.
By the way, sex was first discovered by humans in 3,800 BC. Before that there was no sex.
sidelight: you've come to the wrong place - this artcle insn't for people who have no intellecual curiosity or are incapable of objective reasoning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSuggestion for further study: look up in the etymology of "wheel" in the Oxford Dictionary.
The reasons given for the supposed late arrival of the wheel are not credible. The bow drill & potters wheel are both at least 6000 years old. Primitive cultures worked wood with stone tools. Large boards were split from logs or carved from large tree buttresses. If no bow drill was in use in a particular culture, a green stick twirled between the hands with the addition of a little sand & water will quickly abrade a hole through wood. Similarly a suitable fire stick repeatedly re ignited at the tip & pressed into the same spot will burn a hole through even green timber. The same goes for a hot pebble. Various wooden implements with a hole bored through them or even bone showed the early cultures had this ability. It is strange that even relatively advanced cultures that built roads & farmed & irrigated crops, failed to develop such a simple aid. Certainly round logs were used to move heavy objects.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this+ 1
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarlyle:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfor more detail on the development of the wheel (and many other things!) you need to read something like Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel". They tend to link it with the domestication of draught animals, without which wheels don't make much sense. This is supposed to be the reason wheels were never used in pre-columbian America.
I'd guess terrain plays a role as well: in the Andes there aren't many tracks suitable for wheels, as opposed to the steppes where they guess the wheel evolved.
Thanks. I have ordered a copy from my favourite online used book seller. Really looking forward to it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs you say, without draught animals the wheel would not be nearly so useful. I do not believe lack of suitable tools or ability could be the reason. The amount of investment in time & energy required to construct a wheeled vehicle as apposed to a simple sled would also have been a factor. A Native American travois could be made in minutes & did not need a road or even ground. Even so it is a puzzle. Even a simple wooden barrow would have been enormously useful.
Agree with your admonition to #3 also.
"The reasons given for the supposed late arrival of the wheel are not credible. The bow drill & potters wheel are both at least 6000 years old."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe authors (and phalaris) seem to be using a very narrow definition of what constitutes a wheel. What makes the toy-sized wheels of the pre-Columbian Mesoamericans any less of a "real wheel" than a wagon-sized Eurasian one? If you accept them as "real wheels" it throws a monkey wrench into their whole single-origin theory.
Contrary to what pahlaris said, they DID have domesticated draft (I'm an American & that's how we spell it) animals, but a llama really isn't big enough to haul a cart/wagon. Also, the Andes would only have been an impediment to South American wheeled vehicles - in Mesoamerica, it would have been the Sierra Madres & the jungle.
There are several theories why the Mesoamericans never scaled up the wheel, several of which can been found here:
http://www.precolumbianwheels.com/
Did the Aztecs never discover the pulley either? Pretty amazing that they built some of the structures they did without one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe pulley is a wheel.
Wheel's are so much more than just methods of transportation- they can be found everywhere.
I don't know if the Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecs, etc used the pulley- but if they did- then it would be incorrect to say they didn't use wheels for non-toy applications.
Carlyle, MadScientist -
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthanks for your further ruminations: I agree there's no definitive answer on the topic. Never imagined it even has a dedicated website.
It's like pre-columbian metal-working: there was more of it than one imagines. I was in Bolivia recently, and was amazed at the Tiwanaku culture, where they used metal cramps to hold the stone blocks of their temples together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwanaku
As to why they never got as far as widespread use of metal weapons, once again it's a field for speculation.
Summary of some of the above plus my stuff:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWheels don't function well without lubrication and bearings.
Wheels don't function well without materials of the right strength,formability and other characteristics. Wood works, but often not that well.
Wheels don't fuction well without extensive infrastuctre and power.
I don't know Sumerian, but I'd bet that the words meaning and related to 'wheel' in some Central and Eastern European languages are not borrowings. Certainly, forests and dry steppe were more characteristic of mid-western Eurasia than Mesopotamia. Aren't the pre-Columbian wheels younger than their Eurasian and African counterparts?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt wasn't so easy to invent a useful wheeled vehicle when you couldn't directly draw on nature. The potter's wheel did not provide all the idea. Invention never ends. Many seemingly uncomplicated machines were successfully designed only recently, for example:
- The hang-glider.
- The bicycle. One might even argue that the first ever really good wheel was constructed for the bicycle.
- The sailboard (or windsurfer).
I don't think it was really that hard to come up with it. Think - when you have to move something heavy or bulky, what do you do? You get a 1-2m log or some similar object and role your heavy stuff on it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNext obvious issue you will come up buy is those logs constantly getting stuck and preventing from rolling by various small stuff on the ground or the curves on logs themselves (provided you're not rolling it on a freeway).
So what do you do next? You take your small axe and trim your log in its middle side, so that you only leave the edges untouched (so they can keep rolling) and the middle will not be getting stuck to ground etc.
Voila - there is your grand-grand-grand-axle with two wheels attached.
Now you just keep trimming your log until it's 5cm thick and that's the real thing.
Off course, then your axle starts cracking under load and you're already thinking of ways to make it replaceable :)
Well, maybe I don't know, but according to a very BASIC SCHOOL KNOWLEDGE - a friction force DOES NOT depend on an area but on a specific coefficient of friction and a force (with which two adjacent surfaces are pushing each other). So, it would not matter if an axle is THICK or THIN (narrow) ! By the way, I am a MSc Eng and a former university assistant - so it matters for me - but anyway, everybody can be wrong sometimes (including me too...)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou don`t need big animals to make weels usefull in many places dogs,goatsand other small animals were to pull carts&sleds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, it belongs to A BASIC SCHOOL KNOWLEDGE to know, that a friction force depends on a specific coefficient of friction and a force (between two adjacent surfaces), and DOES NOT DEPEND ON whether an axle IS TRHICK OR NARROW.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ Infinoe "Aren't the pre-Columbian wheels younger than their Eurasian and African counterparts?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile the Mesoamericans wheels are younger than the Eurasian & African ones, their older than the earliest interaction between the cultures of the Eastern & Western Hemispheres. So, while the Mesoamerican wheels will never be hold the title of "oldest wheel", there's no denying that they're an independent invention & the single-origin theory of wheel development is shot out of the water.
@ mathewritchie "dogs,goats and other small animals were to pull carts&sleds"
True, but you don't really need wheels unless you're hauling large loads (too big for a llama, dog, goat, etc.) When you're in the jungle a sled or travois makes more sense than a wheeled cart.
@ Gorgias "it would not matter if an axle is THICK or THIN"
Although friction is independent of surface area, a thick axle would weigh more (= more force), which means more friction. And there's no need to repeat yourself or SHOUT. We understood you the first time.
It isn't too complex, but it was proving so difficult for so long because it is tricky. It is not only about the wheel and axle (with a thick axle being heavy, causing too big moment of force, etc.) It is about the whole strong and manoeuverable system consisting of a cart, horse and driver. Have you ever watched a free harness competition?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr think about a sailboard with a sailor on it. The board, the universal joint, the mast, the sail, the boom, all had been known before, but had to be adapted and combined, and the whole idea had to be conceived. Sailing on a board is simple but tricky. Many of us can do it, but in case you think it was all obvious - have you ever thought about ways of harnessing a dolphin when the wind is small? have you harnessed one?
Leonardo da Vinci had tried to construct a hang-glider and failed. The basic ideas behind cartwrighting are no simpler than those behind special and general relativity. Nobody seems to have any good idea of combining it with quantum mechanics, while it may be as simple as putting the cart and the horse together.
@ MadScientist72. "So, while the Mesoamerican wheels will never be hold the title of "oldest wheel", there's no denying that they're an independent invention & the single-origin theory of wheel development is shot out of the water"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile not denying Mesoamericans inventiveness, they constructed toy-animals on wheels, did they also make (toys of) animal-driven wagons? Even if they did, the single-origin theory can be saved. Conceivably, some recollection of the wheel might have been passed on through SE Asia to Polynesia and further to America by some castaway Polynesian crew! (or Bering Strait might have been crossed again). In this case the single-origin theory re-emerges out of the water.
"did they also make (toys of) animal-driven wagons"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo the best of my knowledge, there's no evidence that they did. Coincidentally that's the same amount of evidence that exists for transfer of wheel technology to mesoamerica via SE Asia/Polynesia or the Bering Strait. Wheels aren't much help travelling over oceans or ice & snow.
So, there may be no evidence that they ever came closer to the real thing, for some reason. This, too, may be in agreement with an influence of new immigrants whose recollection of wheeled vehicles might have fainted as they had travelled over oceans or snows.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have repeated my opinion, because I didn't see my first one - there are only few shown at a first glance on the web page (one must click "Show all" to see all): I am new here and I have registered just yesterday to write down what I have written, and I wanted to see it...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, I don't SHOUT. I have underlined the clue (to "underline what is the most important") - a friction force doesn't depend on an area. (By the way - methods of underlining anything here are very scarce - one can only use CAPITALS to do so). Anyway, I practice my English - just another encumbrance.
You said: "Thick axles weigh more, so they can produce more force and so more a friction force". O.K. - thick axle can carry more load: but there is always "something for something, and nothing for nothing". One can "feel", that a thick axle can carry for example 2 tons of load, comparing to a thin axle, which can carry for example only 1 ton - in such a case a specific weigh of an axle itself is usually negligible (for exmple 50 kg comparing to 25 kg of an axle weigh). And mathematics is not a "feeling". Feeling is (almost always) wrong.
"So, there may be no evidence that they ever came closer to the real thing, for some reason."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother one with a narrow interpretation of what constitutes a "real" wheel? Why does the wheel become less real just because it's small?
"Sorry, I don't SHOUT."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn net etiquette, excessive use of caps is viewed as shouting. and your post #17 was about 1/4 caps - I'd call that excessive.
"in such a case a specific weigh of an axle itself is usually negligible"
Who defines what's negligble? if that extra 25kg of axle pushes the weight of your cart over the point where your draft animal can move it, it's very non-negligible.
In net etiquette using large letters could be taken as shouting, if it is not the case. It is like car emergency lights can mean an engine failure on a road, while it can be also a sign of a heart attack of the driver or a robbery attempt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn a meanwhile, let us meditate on why the science progress is so slow in nowadays ? Isn't it due to talking about the bush ? Most of post letters are about ego of a writer, not about an essential subject. Even if you agree, you don't show it.
In mathematics (which is "a queen" od science) and also in physics (chemistry, etc.) one very, very often use a term: "air resistance etc, magnetic fields impact, materials fatigue etc. - to be neglected). And in fact - comparing a change in load (from 2 tons to 1 ton of a weight, and force) to a change in weight of and axle (from 50 kg if thick, and 25 kg if thin) this is only 2,5%. And it is not a change in load to be carried on: by an animal / man / engine/etc. - it is a change in a force acting on an axle, which can produce more friction force - let's say,more or less than 2,5 grams, depending on: whether an axle is greased or not.
Hough.
Agreed. Bronze tools, or any metal is not really needed to manufacture wheels, axles, boards, etc. Flint blades and ground stone adzes for splitting wood are enough and do the job about as fast as bronze, definitely as well as copper. The coincidence of the development and spread of the wheel with the spread of agriculture is probably because hunter-gatherers lacked the portable wealth, and therefore the need, for transportation technology that requires a significant investment of time and effort. I have no doubt htey would have been quite capable of the innovation if it were worth it to them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Steppe/ Ukrainian origin of the wheel makes perfect sense given the type of terrain there and the early domestication of horses etc. here. Moreover, that would explain how the wheel spread to Europe, the Middle East, India and China fairly early - the Steppes and Central Asia being at the crossroads and also being the source of so many invasions into these regions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should be noted that the CONCEPT of the wheel was definately understood in Mesoamerica - not only via wheeled toys (or some assert, 'ritual trays') and bow-drilling, but in spindle whorls, rotary grinders, voladores dancing and (if some early Spanish sources are to be believed) a sort of rudimentary waterwheel and a Mayan foot-turned potter's 'block' (not quite a potter's wheel). Doubtless the abundance of draught animals in Eurasia made vehicles and a whole range of mechanics possible there, and the abscence of draught animals in Mesoamerica had severe implications for the development of complex mechanics. But it's interesting that humans if thrawted in one field will turn their intelligence elsewhere. The Amerindian civilizations developed many of our early medicinal drugs, rubber, useful fibres and adhesives - and some 60% of the world's food crops.
The Steppe/ Ukrainian origin of the wheel makes perfect sense given the type of terrain there and the early domestication of horses etc. here. Moreover, that would explain how the wheel spread to Europe, the Middle East, India and China fairly early - the Steppes and Central Asia being at the crossroads and also being the source of so many invasions into these regions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should be noted that the CONCEPT of the wheel was definately understood in Mesoamerica - not only via wheeled toys (or some assert, 'ritual trays') and bow-drilling, but in spindle whorls, rotary grinders, voladores dancing and (if some early Spanish sources are to be believed) a sort of rudimentary waterwheel and a Mayan foot-turned potter's 'block' (not quite a potter's wheel). Doubtless the abundance of draught animals in Eurasia made vehicles and a whole range of mechanics possible there, and the abscence of draught animals in Mesoamerica had severe implications for the development of complex mechanics. But it's interesting that humans if thrawted in one field will turn their intelligence elsewhere. The Amerindian civilizations developed many of our early medicinal drugs, rubber, useful fibres and adhesives - and some 60% of the world's food crops.
The Steppe/ Ukrainian origin of the wheel makes perfect sense given the type of terrain there and the early domestication of horses etc. here. Moreover, that would explain how the wheel spread to Europe, the Middle East, India and China fairly early - the Steppes and Central Asia being at the crossroads and also being the source of so many invasions into these regions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should be noted that the CONCEPT of the wheel was definately understood in Mesoamerica - not only via wheeled toys (or some assert, 'ritual trays') and bow-drilling, but in spindle whorls, rotary grinders, voladores dancing and (if some early Spanish sources are to be believed) a sort of rudimentary waterwheel and a Mayan foot-turned potter's 'block' (not quite a potter's wheel). Doubtless the abundance of draught animals in Eurasia made vehicles and a whole range of mechanics possible there, and the abscence of draught animals in Mesoamerica had severe implications for the development of complex mechanics. But it's interesting that humans if thrawted in one field will turn their intelligence elsewhere. The Amerindian civilizations developed many of our early medicinal drugs, rubber, useful fibres and adhesives - and some 60% of the world's food crops.
Once upon a time I was to Malta island and I visited some 5,5 thousand old temples, including Ggantija and Tarxien. I have found some stone slabs having round half-holes, positioned roughly in a gravity center of them. I concluded, that ancient people first invented balls - not wheels. A ball, being round all around, it prevails a wheel due to lack of necessity of having a "driving stick". A ball can be pushed anyway you want, you only need to keep a slab levelled on it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Most of post letters are about ego of a writer"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you mean thing like people waving their academic credentials (like an MSc. in engineering) in others' faces or belittling the education/intelligence of others by calling things "basic school knowledge" when most people don't study the subject? (Maybe things are different where you are, but where I went to school, physics wasn't required & only science geeks [like me] stook the class.)
"And it is not a change in load to be carried on: by an animal / man / engine/etc."
Of course the weight of the axle counts towards the weight of the load! Whatever power source you're using to haul your load has to haul the cart/wagon with it & every additional kg of cart weight is one less kg you can put in the cart. Even the axle's cotribution to friction matters, no matter how small it is. Unless you have an unlimited supply of power to haul your load (and no one does), every gram counts. None of it is "negligible". We're talking real world applications here, not some theoretical math/physics problem.
"I concluded, that ancient people first invented balls - not wheels....A ball can be pushed anyway you want, you only need to keep a slab levelled on it."
A ball would be an impractical device for transporting materials. trying to keep a heavy load balanced on one would be a nightmare. If you eclosed several balls in a framework on each side of your load, it would work, but now you're dealing with racks of bearings, which are more advanced than the wheel-and-axle.
"air resistance etc, magnetic fields impact, materials fatigue etc. - to be neglected"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd you're an engineer? With this kind of negligent attitude, it's no wonder bridges fall down!
Everyone's entitled to have an opinion. When you epxress yours in a forum like this, you are opening it up to comment/critique from evryone here, not just the article's author. If you're not ready to face that, yuo should probably keep your opinion to yourself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was expressing MY opinion, no one else's. And I find your insinuations about my integrity (that I'm getting paid by someone to write this), my mental health (that i need to see a doctor) and my honesty (that I'm not really an American) OFFENSIVE!
Your "basic" education system teaches physics to 12-year-olds? I find that hard to believe.
"one cannot solve a problem and find a solution, without neglecting some unnecessary things"
The weight of construction materials in a device inteded to haul heavy loads if far from an unnecessary thing.
"You should better think about better oil to "grease" things, so that they could go smoother, than worry about a small impact of an axle weight to a total friction."
In case you forgot, the article is about the invention & use of the wheel in ancient times. They didn't have access to modern lubricant technology.
"total load DOES matter ... but this is BEYOND of the subject of my first post/note to the article."
In your first post (#15) you said "it would not matter if an axle is THICK or THIN". I was pointing out an aspect which you appeared to have overlooked that showed that it does matter.
I think you've got an emotinal problem, maybe - you don't like teachers, because...you are the one... or you pretend to be the one. And, it's hard to say (and believe): the only one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing (what is said, or to be said) will change any of physics rights (laws).
Physics is started to be tought at age of 10 or 11. When I was 13, I started in schools' olympic games -in physics among others - and I reached the 4-th level: my county level (I was on the 6-th position). The next, and the last level was general country level, but only 3 people from every county were qualified, so I wasn't. But I was prized, and I was glad, because I only used to learn very good of that knowledge, which was given in regular school books. Or, should I say, I used to learn (listen to a teacher) mostly at school lessons - having less or nothing at all to do home.
Physics (like mathematics) is a way of thinking. Stricte logical. You should be rather a paperback writer, or a humanist, a jurnalist, etc...
I think you are looking for a friend (or an enemy) - there are many round-a-vous services, look for and sign up there. One cannot mux everything, like you do.
"Weaving a diploma..." - you seemed like to be personally offended... by my education. Isn't it you, to be the biggest.... talker ?
It should be noted that it all happened before the formation of tribes which later became nations. Perhaps, several thousand years ago some parts of the huge group called Proto-Indo-Europeans wandered out to different parts the big continent. Those who remained close to the area of origin, well fed and clad, without special transportation needs, turned to entertainment. Among other things, they played with horses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo it began, and when the invention was made, it was quickly picked up and developed by many peoples, providing more freedom and control over nature, one of the very few occasions after the invention of fire.
In some parts of the world the story was different. In Egypt, for example, the legendary engineer and physician Imhotep might have found the wheel fairly useful, if only he had invented it. But he did not, and he was not relieved from that responsibility for a thousand years, until Egipt was invaded (but not conquered). Another thousand years had passed when Mesoamericans developed or adopted a basic concept of wheel without a hub, turning most of their energy to other causes. Some two thousand years later they were invaded and conquered. Australian peoples felt no need of the wheel, living in their own reality.
Had horses been continuously hunted rather than domesticated, they might well have gone extinct. The wheel, and the modern civilisation, might not have been developed until today.
In my "History of Science and Technology," I emphasize not only the potter's wheel (at least 1,000 years before wheeled carts), but also that the first carts were essentially sledges--designed to be dragged over snow, sand, or soil--with added wheels. The main thing is that early humans used wheels for a long time before adapting them for transportation. In the Middle East at least, the first use of wheeled carts was to transport effigies of gods and the bodies of rulers or other important persons--so hearses of a sort preceded wheeled carts for carrying goods.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you've got an emotional problem, maybe - you don't like teachers, because...you are the one... or you pretend to be the one. And, it's hard to say (and believe): the only one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing (what is said, or to be said) will change any rights (laws)of physics.
Children are started to be tought physics at age of 10 or 11. When I was 13, I started in schools' olympic games -in physics among others - and I reached the 4-th level: my county level (I was on the 6-th position). The next, and the last level was general country level, but only 3 people from every county were qualified, so I wasn't. But I was prized, and I was glad, because I only used to learn very good of that knowledge, which was given in regular school books. Or, should I say, I used to learn (listen to a teacher) mostly at school lessons - having less or nothing at all to do home.
Physics (like mathematics) is a way of thinking. Stricte logical. You should be rather a paperback writer, or a humanist, a journalist, etc...
I think you are looking for a friend (or an enemy) - there are many round-a-vous (rendez-vous only around you) services, look for and sign up there. One cannot mix everything, like you do.
"Waving a diploma..." - you seemed like you were personally offended... by my education. Isn't it you, to be the biggest.... talker ?
And, at last, there is no such thing like "net etiquette", indeed - there is only an etiquette, for all. When stationery telephones had just appeared at homes, some children used to dial a random tel. numbers and used to present themselves as: "Hello, this is Sherlock Holmes speaking..haha". And it was againt an etiquette - not "tel etiquette". Now it's over, but it starts on the net - it's when interrupting someone's else's talk. But it's always against THE ETIQUETTE to interfere, no matter how mad you are...
You're repeating yourself again. And babbling. I have no more time for you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, ladies and gentlemen, such squabbling is rather embarrassing. I would hope in the future that you refrain from this kind on exchange on a public forum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegardless of the first use of wheels on a cart, the concept of a round thing rolling is everywhere in nature. Stones become more or less round when being rolled by moving water in a fast stream.
Anyone who has eaten fatty meat is aware of the lubricating qualities of fat. It is reasonable to imagine that these ideas were assembled into something useful long before the mentioned "discovery". Let's not get too impressed with our modern selves!
You're shouting about basic school knowledge - but when people start learning real physics and engineering, they also learn that that basic school knowledge of idealized physical constructs rarely applies to the real world, where e.g. a wooden axle does not have a completely smooth surface and perfectly cylindrical cross section. Particularly when loaded, the surface, even if initially smooth, would probably degenerate due to stress.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPretty much nothing of the first approximation theories of idealized friction forces of elementary school would be relevant.
Not that I'm all that sure that a smaller axle would necessarily be preferable over a larger one, but it sure can't be reduced to being irrelevant. Except maybe to an engineer, who never did any real engineering.
When I first read this I had a similar reaction...however, I believe they are using the narrow definition of a wheel used for the purpose of transporting. Looking at it that way makes the article make sense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome decades ago I came across an article in a Dutch popular science magazine ('Kijk')in which was a description of pieces of wood found in an Egyptian pyramid. They circumscribed a quarter of a circle. The inside of that quarter was a 90 degree notch. The surface of the quarter circle was grooved. This maybe a bit hard to picture until you understand that four of these quarter circles were placed on the four corners of a cubical stone. Likewise in paralel and secured by ropes running through the grooves. And so square was made into round and the blocks could be transported by rolling them. This looks like an early or even pre-version of the wheel, but it is so clever that the idea can also have been derived from the wheel. janploeg.nl
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The reason it took so long to invent the wheel is that one of the tribal leaders, Mr. Firey Stone could not decide wheather to make a tubeless tire or just stick with the tried and true "tube within a tire" configuration.
It is also reported that he was also having problems with the "Air Compressor" device that was needed to inflate either one of the tire designs, and his workers were blowing their eardrums out from biting the "valve stem" and blowing as hard as they could, and were threatening to file a lawsuit for workers compensation.
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Are you tired of reading?
I'm not tired of typing, and I can go on for quite awhile.
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Primitive man would have had difficulty constructing a round (circular) wheel of wood or stone, and he would also have had difficulty placing the axle exactly in the center. When the wheel is not nearly perfectly round and/or the axle is not centered in the wheel the system is subject to rapid failure. The failure would have discouraged many primitive inventors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPotters wheel around 6000 years old? That is only 500 years earlier than the postulated date the author stated of 3500 BC (5500 ya). Just saying...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow you have started to shout - where have you been ? Asleep ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou've forgotten to mention other options:
a) an axle can be hollow (drilled inside) to reduce growing of the axle's weight, while increasing its diameter;
b) a material of an axle can be different: thinner could be made of a metal (if any available), while greater could be made of a wood (which weigh less, etc... -
It all changes the article's geberal conclusions in this part of a text of "the greater axle's diameter = the greater the axle's weight";
c) possibilty of lubricating of the pair: axle-bush (bearing);
d) etc. ...
According to me, the article describes the subject in thispart in an non-appropriate way. I am not "showing myself" - it is "that's why" I have mentioned the basic level of that knowledge. On the other hand, I have slightly introduced myself - so that data base collectors could be happy, too.
Now, this is the new (my personal) way of reading newspapers (articles in net). I used to use computers for the first time during studying in the mid's of 80's, while learning Fortran HP, GW Basic etc. programming languages - there was no internet available at that time. Computers invented were for science calculations. The same chips as in PC XT computers were also installed in Apollo program rockets.
Now, one can read a newspaper, and make a note to an editor. Some like it, some not... I don't care anymore about it.
If I'd listen to (who dislikes it) - computers would have been only for: advertising, investigating people's likes and dislikes, collecting@selling data bases, virusing, and bla-bla...
If I want to shout, I will.
But using Outlook Express editor is much reacher in writing possibilities, than this - another note to the editor (of the article).
In Egypt, even before the Hittite invasion, at least since Imhotep times, heavy stone cylinders were used for columns. Maybe these parts, unloaded from a barge, were themselves being rolled to their destination by using ropes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou may want to learn a bit more about conversational English with United States Americans. Obviously everyone in North America and South America are Americans but we in the states have the bad habit of thinking of ourselves as the only "Americans". Your first post did not present well and made you seem very much like you don't understand basic physics and are very insecure about yourself. I like to think that it is more a cultural difference and English being not you primary language that makes you seem that way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs the discussion continues, you seem to be shifting more and more into modern technology instead of the distant past and the limited options available to our ancestors. If you are stripped of all modern tools and dumped far from civilization, can you create a working wheeled cart? I couldn't.
You are correct in that you can yell if you want, but others can report your posts as abusive and the site will then remove them. Please don't because I enjoy what I learn from the comments just as much as what I learn from the articles.
I think - that you (you and the madscientist72) are cheeky teenagers, who have a fun here, to discuss with an university teacher (in an age of you fathers) like with a school colleague, and pretend, that you completely do not understand what I wrote and wanted to say.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo - maybe for you and the madscientist72 - the proper webpage would be: FunnyAmericanScienceChildren.
That's just the way it is.
Bye. Have a good time...
We heard it from you - but why would we believe you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne instance of inanity looks like, well, inanity. Two instances becomes arrogance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The invention of the wheel was so challenging that it probably happened only once, in one place."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDang. To have the royalties on that one!
Why wasn't wheel discovered sooner? Well you know....I didn't know anyone wanted one! ;)
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